


Danse De La Fee

by Cuppatea13



Series: The Stories of Arlie [13]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Interlude, Romance, So Sappy, clint and tasha, heaping tons of clintasha, romance to the nth power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 09:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3376433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuppatea13/pseuds/Cuppatea13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moments we missed in Reliant- watching Clint and Natasha become Clint and Nat, and all the steps in between. (Main story is: Reliant, this is an interlude.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Danse De La Fee

**Author's Note:**

> So who wants a heaping ton of Clintasha?!
> 
> I do!
> 
> Anyways-this happened in my brain & it wouldn't let me work on anything else until I had gotten it out, so here we have the progression of Clintasha- all the moments we missed in the Reliant simply because I didn't think they actually pertained.
> 
> Which, looking back, was stupid- but here they are!
> 
> Enjoy and please review!

**December 13th, 2007 (Natasha)**

We're in Venice, on our first mission as partners, looking at our target while pretending to admire one of the canals when he tells me.

"I ran away to the circus when I was nine with my brother, Barney."

I turn and listen to him spin the strange tale of a boy who picked up a bow and shot a bullseye his first attempt. Of a circus filled with performers who became family and family who became traitors. I listen as he talks and say nothing, just absorbing everything he's willing to tell me. I'm quite certain it's not everything- he's not ready for that yet, but he tells me enough so I feel safer.

I know who holds my life in his hands.

* * *

**September 3rd, 2008 (Clint)**

I'm watching Nat through my sight as she waits for our mark to show up for their "date." She insisted on coming over an hour early so she could scope out the place properly and so she could decide how to make her entrance. When I told her she should just walk in the door she rolled her eyes at me and said that didn't draw the necessary attention.

Funny- always got mine.

Her voice crackles on the comm as we talk back and forth until she says, "I don't remember the fire."

I know instantly what she's talking about and I know just what she needs: she needs a response. Short, but something that lets her know you're still there.

"I remember the crash still."

"Is that one of your nightmares?"

"One of them."

She continues to talk over the comm as she tells me her life story. She's told me bits and pieces but now it's all spilling out to me over the radio waves and the crackle of electricity and, stupidly, I'm trying to remember if I checked the battery on my comm this morning because I do not want to miss a moment of this.

I know why she chose now, of course. She's been ready to tell me for about a week, but now we're on either side of a comm so she won't have to deal with any physical signs of emotion, she's working on a job so she can occupy her brain with something else as she lets her mouth run away with her tale, and she's got no one to listen but me.

I put in a response here and there, letting her know I'm with her and that I'm not judging her or, above all, pitying her. Her past is tragic, but she is not.

She is amazing.

* * *

**May 4th, 2009 (Natasha)**

We're in Norway freezing our asses off when he tells me.

"You know."

I turn and say nothing, because of course I know, and the only thing I don't know his why he's bringing it up now.

Then I realize: I'm not running away and I'm not hiding. He knows now is the time to bring it up because he knows me.

So I smile at him and he returns it and if his hand finds mine and wraps around it- well, my fingers were getting cold anyways.

* * *

**November 30th, 2009 (Clint)**

I've got Nat in my sight as I watch her seduce our mark so she can get him a little drunk and interrogate him without him realizing he ever gave anything away. I'm biting back jealousy, knowing it's pointless and a waste of time, but unable to keep my fingers from twitching when he slaps her ass.

He retreats to the bathroom momentarily and Nat's voice comes to me over the comms. Some words just for me, nothing I have to share.

"I know."

* * *

**August 8th, 2010 (Natasha)**

We're in Bolivia when he tells me.

"I love you."

He's bleeding from a gunshot to the shoulder and I don't have anything to clean the wound with let alone bandage it. It hasn't hit a major artery, but he's bleeding out and I'm scared.

And he chooses  _now_  to tell me. That говнюк. (Shit head)

The words are something for me to grab onto though, so I start making bandages out of whatever's handy and when he calls me MacGyver and I look confused, he only tells me I have another cultural factoid to learn.

He gets back to SHIELD though.

* * *

**November 18th, 2010 (Clint)**

I've tagged along with Nat as she goes to the ballet studio Arlie hooked her up with several birthdays ago now. I've brought paperwork to do after realizing with all the trainees around base these days, I'd have a hard time getting anything done.

Mostly because I'd be too tempted to terrorize them.

Nat's pretty unconcerned as she stretches and turns on the music while I settle down in one corner with my paperwork, fully prepared to get some work done.

But Nat's soon got my entire attention.

She's not dancing- she  _is_  the music. And it really shouldn't come as a surprise, since she makes her living being things she's actually not.

I'm watching her so closely I can tell the exact moment she realizes I've abandoned my paperwork for watching her show. She continues to remain in her own world, though- a place I cannot follow, a place I don't want to follow because it's  _hers_  and as much as she shares with me and I share with her, we each have places the other can't fully follow.

And that's good.

"What is this?" I ask softly as she continues through song after song without a pause.

"Tchaikovsky," she replies without breaking from her own world.

"And this in particular?"

"Danse De La Fée."

I wait a moment.

"Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," she eventually tells me.

"You're not a fairy," I say softly, but she still hears it.

"What am I, then?"

"You're real."

She actually stops, feet and arms coming down and resting as the music plays on. She's somewhere between her own world and the one we share as she looks at me with an expression I can't quite read- which is strange, since I can read almost all her expressions.

"Nat?" I question softly.

"I love you," she whispers, softer than the music that is now fading away on the stereo.

I just smile at her, and as the next song begins to play, her arms and feet go back into position and she continues to dance.

But this time, I can follow her a little bit closer to her world: not to join, but to watch as she becomes music.


End file.
